Let's Encrypt to offer free, easy to use certificates in 2015 through certificate authority

Secure sockets layer (SSL) and transport layer security (TLS) certificates will soon come easier and cheaper to website owners. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Mozilla, Cisco, IdenTrust, Akamai and University of Michigan researchers are teaming up to create a new certificate authority (CA) initiative to entice the transition of all websites to an HTTPS standard.

The "Let's Encrypt" initiative started as a way to improve the baseline security of the web. The majority of websites still use HTTP instead of the more secure HTTPS, allowing nefarious parties to monitor browsing habits, sniff out personally-identifiable information, conduct surveillance, commit acts of censorship, or even commence a cyberattack in some circumstances. While HTTPS isn't perfect, the EFF admits that it's a significant improvement for consumer protection.

Enabling SSL/TLS can be a blundering process that leads to misconfigured certificates, so the initiative aims to make the process simpler. Rather than taking one to three hours for a first-time setup, Let's Encrypt attempts to cut the setup time to 30 seconds or less with custom, open-source software. The big news is that Let's Encrypt will provide SSL/TLS certificates to anyone that asks for them -- for free. This will save site owners a significant amount, as SSL certificates can be as low as $60 a year, or jump into the thousands -- depending on the site and type selected.

A number of new technologies are included in Let's Encrypt, allowing the system to automate the process of securing domains, issuing the certificates, and initiating renewals. The ACME protocol is being developed to communicate between the servers and the CA, which the EFF says "includes support for new and stronger forms of domain validation." Let's Encrypt also utilizes datasets in order to make safe issuing decisions.

Control of the Let's Encrypt program will be handed over to the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), a new non-profit organization. ISRG Executive Director Josh Aas filled PC World in on some of the details of how the CA will be run. It's said that the certificate authority will be handled in a transparent way, granting people access to the records for certificate issuance or revocation when asked.

The CA is attempting to have its root certificate accepted in the major root programs, that way software will trust the certificates by default that are issued under Let's Encrypt. However, it can take anywhere from one to three years for that to happen. Until acceptance is reached, IdenTrust will cross-sign the Let's Encrypt root certificate. Let's Encrypt will also subject itself to the same audits its peers go through.

Aas said that "there will be no billing interaction, no need to create an account. You don't really need to know much at all except that you want to turn on TLS." The EFF says that Let's Encrypt will launch this summer.

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